teen romance

I admit it. I totally judged this book based on the fact that it was a girl looking for romance dressed in a beaver costume called Eager Beaver. Shame on me. I did read a couple of chapters and it is cute and perfect for a teen romance (at least so far). I will see if the author can sustain the humor.

This is a teen romance paperback. There doesn’t seem to be anything overtly sexual about this book, which is nice for teens. It follows the same formula of many adult historical romance novels:

-Woman is kidnapped

-Woman hates her captor

-Woman has to admit, though, that her captor is quite handsome.

-Woman realizes that her captor isn’t so bad. In fact, she might just love him!

There’s nothing wrong with a little brain candy, and I take no issue with romance novels. In fact, most of the reviewers on Amazon liked this book. What makes it an awful library book is a combination of its age, its condition (it is being held together with LOTS of tape and many pages come loose from the binding when you try to turn them), and it’s general expendability.

That’s right, it’s expendable. Librarians have to make choices when the shelves get too full, and this one is easily replaceable with something else (another historical romance for teens, hopefully). I’m not suggesting we don’t put this kind of thing in the collection. I’m saying we rotate them with new things like them more frequently.

The cheesiness of the storyline “think how much better you will play after you’ve opened up more, opened up to love”

What do Brussels sprouts have to do with anything?

The fact that our library has 2 copies of this!

Holly: This came from a middle school library, and I have to agree with them on all counts. It’s dated. Sure, a few teens might go for this kind of thing, but in school libraries where budgets and space are tight, this is a reasonable weed. Kids who were in middle school in 1996 (anywhere from 12 to 14 years old) when this book was written are now 28 to 30 years old. (See, I can do math!) If the books in the school library are older than the kids they are meant for, they should be *considered* for weeding. (*Yes, there are exceptions!)